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danramos is offline danramos
2010-07-31 , 13:25
Posts: 4,672 | Thanked: 5,455 times | Joined on Jul 2008 @ Springfield, MA, USA
#261
Originally Posted by attila77 View Post
This is different in terms that, unlike the Fremantle backport/Mer projects, it is not a mostly community enthusiast project and actually has paid staff working on it (realistically, considering MeeGo, Fremantle backporting was a stillborn/dead end). Will that be enough to result in something usable for end-users ? I have no idea, but I can tell it at least has good chances, far better than it ever had. I just hope the lack of public support and the weight of past mistakes doesn't discourage anyone, *either* inside or outside that team.
And that's the prescient issue: Will Nokia's repeatedly sour history with the hobbyists and arrogant corporate attitude, against engineers and customers alike, rub off on this new effort? They are, as you put it--paid by Nokia, instead of the open source community which built far better tools and architectures from gcc to Sonar to Linux to Apache and the plethora of GNU tools we all love and depend on in most POSIX environments these days. You're hard pressed to see the same quality and assurances of maintenance from Nokia as you see from corporate sponsored, but importantly, community run projects and developments.

It's truly sad to see Nokia fail to recognize what they HAD as a pioneer in this market at the time--and it's even more frustrating as someone who ALMOST had the kind of product they could trust to recommend to associates, friends and business partners. Ultimately, NOBODY wants to buy something from Nokia with such an awkward support and communication structure in addition to the quick and complete orphaning of tablets and phones.

THIS is why, tragically for Nokia, if MeeGo is to succeed at all it will be because of some other company than Nokia as a member of the MeeGo project. Or, if we're all incredibly lucky, they truly DO build a fully open-source friendly architecture line of products (tablets, handsets, portable gaming console, etc) and THEN just concentrate on that hardware while the community does what they do best with a set of open-source drivers in hand. Nobody would even care that it didn't have apps. They'll write them. The open-source community always have.

My 2 cents and plus some.
 

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qwerty12 is offline qwerty12
2010-07-31 , 13:27
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#262
Originally Posted by danramos View Post
[...]Now with this news about Samsung open-sourcing everything for their phones is in direct contrast to Nokia's lack of effort to pull openness for its community.
Citation, please? Last time I checked, the Galaxy's kernel ships with the object files for their drivers in contrast to Nokia which do give you the full source for their N900 kernel stuff. (Not that I'm putting Nokia on a pedestal here: The last time I checked, what Nokia make up for in open sourcing their kernel stuff, they make up for in closing other stuff. E.g. fmtx_si4713 is open, fmtxd is not. After all, MeeGo on the N900 shall need closed components to run.)

Truth be told, I don't place much faith in Samsung and open source, either. I have a Samsung TV (I can ****ing telnet into my TV!) and their source offerings for that are like Nokia's: Just mostly the opened GNU components that they're obligated to provide, not really their stuff.
 
attila77 is offline attila77
2010-07-31 , 13:36
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#263
Originally Posted by danramos View Post
They don't have to. Their track record for Apple has pretty much spoken for itself, and Google phones have managed pretty well too.
Apparently our definitions of pretty well differ (how many Android devices have had official support cycles significantly longer than one year ?).

Now with this news about Samsung open-sourcing everything for their phones is in direct contrast to Nokia's lack of effort to pull openness for its community. Nokia hasn't really had the best tangible track record despite all assurances of openness and support.
I fully applaud Samsung for embracing Open Source, but "everything for their phones" appears to be a slight exaggeration, unless you say that as leverage against Nokia. You won't see me going against any notion that whatever Nokia (or other vendor) component is closed should not be opened, no complaints there.

What I tried to say with my limited diplomacy skills is that even if some have lost the half-full glass vision, it would be at least prudent to give them the benefit of the doubt and not discard any and all their efforts, both community and Nokian, past errors and mistakes notwithstanding (call me an optimist or fanboy, but do we really want more being able to say told-you-so, or open, working devices ?).

As for the announcements, I don't fully understand how they could announce future plans about devices that themselves have not been yet announced (/me gone crosseyed). That's why I say let's at least wait for the exact announcement of the N9-or-whatever-its-called and THEN we can communicate that this or that is good or bad.

EDIT:
Originally Posted by danramos View Post
They are, as you put it--paid by Nokia, instead of the open source community which built far better tools and architectures from gcc to Sonar to Linux to Apache and the plethora of GNU tools we all love and depend on in most POSIX environments these days. You're hard pressed to see the same quality and assurances of maintenance from Nokia as you see from corporate sponsored, but importantly, community run projects and developments.
So.. Stskeeps is a lemon ? I might have been imprecise - if you look at the team member list, you'll see that even though there are plenty of Nokians there (which I actually think is an advantage), there are also plenty of people with other affiliations (i.e. sponsored), and it *is* open to the open source community (except for them pesky drivers and stuff like BME - but that is a different fight).
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Last edited by attila77; 2010-07-31 at 13:52.
 
danramos's Avatar
danramos is offline danramos
2010-07-31 , 13:50
Posts: 4,672 | Thanked: 5,455 times | Joined on Jul 2008 @ Springfield, MA, USA
#264
Originally Posted by qwerty12 View Post
Citation, please? Last time I checked, the Galaxy's kernel ships with the object files for their drivers in contrast to Nokia which do give you the full source for their N900 kernel stuff. (Not that I'm putting Nokia on a pedestal here: The last time I checked, what Nokia make up for in open sourcing their kernel stuff, they make up for in closing other stuff. E.g. fmtx_si4713 is open, fmtxd is not. After all, MeeGo on the N900 shall need closed components to run.)

Truth be told, I don't place much faith in Samsung and open source, either. I have a Samsung TV (I can ****ing telnet into my TV!) and their source offerings for that are like Nokia's: Just mostly the opened GNU components that they're obligated to provide, not really their stuff.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=739823

Particularly the first posting and the last posting where they indicated "Another member says that they have been in contact with Samsung and that they(Samsung) intends on releasing the full driver source sometime next week. Whenever the complete source is released, I will update the links."

Mind you, this means it's not fully open yet (we'll have to wait on a tangible release of that code to actually claim that), but it seems positive. Even with what WAS released in the package, according to a cursory examination by STSKeeps, it appears to have more opened code than Maemo 5.

There's a whole thread on this at http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=59502

After dancing this open-source jig with Nokia, I'm willing to give Samsung a chance to really prove themselves where Nokia has failed repeatedly despite assurances and claims. We'll see, though. I'm hopeful.
 

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danramos is offline danramos
2010-07-31 , 14:01
Posts: 4,672 | Thanked: 5,455 times | Joined on Jul 2008 @ Springfield, MA, USA
#265
Originally Posted by attila77 View Post
What I tried to say with my limited diplomacy skills is that even if some have lost the half-full glass vision, it would be at least prudent to give them the benefit of the doubt and not discard any and all their efforts, both community and Nokian, past errors and mistakes notwithstanding (call me an optimist or fanboy, but do we really want more being able to say told-you-so, or open, working devices ?).
There would be no more 'I told you so' if there were no more 'I told you so' opportunities, would there? The only reason why someone can say that is because Nokia met the lowest expectations instead of exceeding that.

Are you seriously suggesting that people should stop having minimum expectations? We should lower our expectations from Nokia to its customers and the community it claims to be trying to foster around its products?

I'm not sure that optimism has been earned yet and I'm damned sure that blaming the community will do Nokia any good, especially when it isn't enabling the community to support its own products. It certainly isn't attempting to leverage any favorable and competitive advantage through its community, anyway. It's brutal to hear--but ultimately it's the customer that spends the money and makes or breaks the brand, and blaming the community is effectively blaming the customer.

Originally Posted by attila77 View Post
As for the announcements, I don't fully understand how they could announce future plans about devices that themselves have not been yet announced (/me gone crosseyed). That's why I say let's at least wait for the exact announcement of the N9-or-whatever-its-called and THEN we can communicate that this or that is good or bad.

EDIT:


So.. Stskeeps is a lemon ? I might have been imprecise - if you look at the team member list, you'll see that even though there are plenty of Nokians there (which I actually think is an advantage), there are also plenty of people with other affiliations (i.e. sponsored), and it *is* open to the open source community (except for them pesky drivers and stuff like BME - but that is a different fight).
We can wait all we want, but the product announcement isn't much good without satisfying the community's requests for support (open code, better customer support, parts, communication, etc.). Placing that lemon label on STSKeeps is marginalizing an individual and misses the points I've been making.
 
attila77 is offline attila77
2010-07-31 , 14:31
Posts: 3,319 | Thanked: 5,610 times | Joined on Aug 2008 @ Finland
#266
Originally Posted by danramos View Post
There would be no more 'I told you so' if there were no more 'I told you so' opportunities, would there?
The point is people started told-you-so-ing even before anything happened or signs to the contrary exist. See the 'maemo is dead' and 'no meego on N900' sentiment.

Are you seriously suggesting that people should stop having minimum expectations? We should lower our expectations from Nokia to its customers and the community it claims to be trying to foster around its products?
Certainly not, unless those minimum expectations are unrealistic (see the post about supporting devices at least for 4-5 years) or based on incomplete informations (like what MeeGo really is).

I'm not sure that optimism has been earned yet and I'm damned sure that blaming the community will do Nokia any good,
Whoa whoa. When and what for did Nokia blame the community ? (and I'm asking this not to defend Nokia but be able to communicate that such an attitude is bad, or at least that something got very lost in translation).

good without satisfying the community's requests for support (open code, better customer support, parts, communication, etc.). Placing that lemon label on STSKeeps is marginalizing an individual and misses the points I've been making.
The point in that particular paragraph came across to me as saying 'duh, another Nokia team that will produce utter crap', without acknowledging people outside of Nokia, and even bona fide community members working on that very effort which is about what you have written above (if working on getting MeeGo into a better shape on the N900 does not count towards satisfying community demands and support, I don't know what is).
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imperiallight is offline imperiallight
2010-07-31 , 14:35
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#267
Nokia drives the n900 off cheap (read free) labour and if you told them that they would say "we know". All other money is put into marketing spin and pumping out these devices to the clueless masses.
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etuoyo is offline etuoyo
2010-07-31 , 14:45
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#268
Originally Posted by attila77 View Post
Wait. I don't understand. What guarantee are we talking about ? Where are the guarantees that, say, a Droid X (or EVO 4G, Galaxy S) will be upgradeable to Android 3.0 ? Has Apple given a statement that the iPhone4 will be upgradeable to iOS 5 ? Please, let's at least wait until the thing gets released. If you Osborne out, marketing was right (that said, I do think the N9 should have an upgrade guarantee at launch exactly because of it's sensitive position).
But they are released on somewhat mature systems so likely to have less bugs. I have been burnt by all the bugs on Maemo 5 which were never fixed. They may be fixed in Maemo 6 but Maemo 6 may have a completely new set of bugs.

Also the top of the range Androids are now being updated from 2.1 to 2.2. Same with iphones. So there has been a positive track record there. Not like Nokia that forces you to buy a new device to get the new operating system.

So I will definitely be sitting out the next Nokia especially with so many android devices coming out now and android having a very developed app market. If I did not need a new device till next year when the meego device is ready then I would consider the Nokia meego then. However, I cannot take the N900 that long and can't trust Nokia that the N9 can be updated to meego.
 

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daperl is offline daperl
2010-07-31 , 15:26
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#269
@danramos

Are you saying that the n900 is as likely to see a good version of MeeGo-Harmattan as an n8x0 was going to see any version of Fremantle? If so, you're ignoring simple facts that make some of us reasonably hopeful.
  • The n8x0 (OMAP2) wasn't used nor was it a target device for Fremantle development. A Beagleboard (OMAP3) was used.
  • The n900 (OMAP3) is being used and is a target device for MeeGo.
  • The hardware of the MeeGo-Harmattan device (OMAP3) will be a very close cousin to the n900. Not as close as the n800 was to the n810, but very close.
  • The Qt UI components for the MeeGo-Harmattan device are OFFICIALLY being supported by Nokia for the n900.
  • stskeeps is now being paid by Nokia
So, my optimism for the n900's future has nothing to do with Nokia's pattern of support, it has to do with simple facts like the above.
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ndi is offline ndi
2010-07-31 , 16:25
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#270
Originally Posted by etuoyo View Post
But they are released on somewhat mature systems so likely to have less bugs. I have been burnt by all the bugs on Maemo 5 which were never fixed. They may be fixed in Maemo 6 but Maemo 6 may have a completely new set of bugs.
Yes, but they are much less likely to be killer bugs. At some point in the future the core of the phone app will finally have all its bugs fixed. Sure they will introduce new ones, but the likelihood of "no USSD" or "stutters" is slim to none.

Plus, unlike unwritten features, broken features can be reverted to in code, diffed, debugged, traced.
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